Lulu update

 I'm back from the vet with Lulu now.  She has been resting all day, her favourite spot on the single bed (quilted of course) which has Tam's blow-up mattress laid across the top as nowhere else for me to put it.  I "lost" her many times (Pippi too) before I discovered this hiding place.  Anyway, she did a tiny offering of poo of the right colour and no longer diarrhoea this morning, and has been eating.  I had trouble getting her into the cat carrier and after she escaped once, had to upend it and feed her in, with her still trying to double back and escape.  

Gosh, I need to vacuum the kitchen floor!  And put the polishing rags bag away.  

Here she is "tinging" the water bowl with her claws.  It makes a musical ring.  The vet said she had had a very bad allergic reaction causing Diverticulitis,  to something in the PURINA FELIX ORIGINAL MIXED SELECTION IN GRAVY sachets.  Do NOT buy these for your cat as there is something in the ingredients which can make certain cats very ill indeed.  She said she didn't need any treatment, but I did right to bring her in to get her checked out.  

I hated sitting in the vet's with her. Last time Tam and I were there to have L. Whale pts.  My nerves were twanging - love makes you so vulnerable.  My nervous system/stress levels have never really gotten back to normal after the state I was in during Keith's final weeks.  

I shall go back and work a bit more on the quilt after tea.  It will now have to have a stripe down the back too!  Oh what fun :) 

(I had some curry sauce left over from last night's king prawn curry so tonight it will be chicken curry, with mixed grain rice incl. red and wild rice.  Yummy.)

I have had one expense.  The 2nd is a new microwave (I will wait for Black Friday to get the Panasonic one I fancy - pointless buying the cheaper ones as they only last 3 yrs).  What will the 3rd expense be?

A poorly Lulu

 The two quilts sewn together - you can see the brown strip, but whichever sides I sewed together, all were edged in brown as clearly she had lots of brown left over . . .  Name of Quilt, "Brown Stripe"!!  I clearly didn't have my thinking head on as that would have removed another strip either side, but then I would have been left with incomplete paler hexies.  Can't win I guess.  If I had just removed the valances, although generous, the single tops wouldn't have been sufficiently wide enough to go over a bed.

Lulu has had a very poorly upset tummy.  I'm not sure if it was the sachets of meat in gravy that did it as that has upset Pippi's tummy in the past, or whether she has just got an inflamed gut, but she was passing bloody diarrhoea last night and sicked up some slightly pink foam.  Needless to say all this happened well after the vet's had shut.  She spent the night on my bed, snuggled into my back as usual, purring, and has seemed quite bright this morning, and eaten some biscuits and a little of a different sachet.  I have tried to get an early (morning) appointment at the vet's but although I phoned dead on 9, when they open, all the morning appointments are already taken.  Just like the GP . . .  don't know how it happens unless people turn up on the doorstep to book animals in. 

I will have to keep busy as obviously I am worried.  They said as long as she wasn't lethargic, she would be ok to wait.

 It's often Pippi in the photos, but Lulu likes to be upstairs, that's her domain.  She doesn't often go outside either and when she does, she doesn't go far.  She would e perfectly happy to be a total house cat.

So now I have to worry until 3.30 when she is booked in.  

Angels on my shoulders?

 . . . or perhaps on my fingertips, as I imagine these little old wrinkled faces smiling as I work on the quilts they once made and need restoring, or finishing, or altering.  I sense they would be delighted to see them put to rights, ready to be loved and treasured again.  So many hours of stitching went into their creations and - heavens - a good few into putting them to rights again!  I can vouch for that.  I have done quite a few down the years.  

They might touch with angel hands a fabric they remember buying, or which started off life as a dress or skirt, they might think of what they were listening to on the radio or tv whilst they sewed (Z-Cars or Gardeners World or the A-Team or Fawlty Towers perhaps, with this current hexi quilt).  

I have had a busy day today, stripping and remaking the guest bed with a winter duvet and brushed cotton bedding, and washing the used-once set and hanging it up to dry.  I baked a lovely loaf of bread, and made a Spicy Dorset Apple Cake to take to my friend tomorrow, but it smelt so good that I weakened and had a piece and then had to make her another (Manderin Orange Cake).  

I have been sewing - joining the loose backing on the quilts, and now I am on the borders.  One went smoothly but this current one has a join in the middle and that hexi-angel bodged it a bit and so I am having to try and unbodge it.  Bless her, we all do things like that.  

I am still happily watching Outlander, but skipping the awful scene in Wentworth jail with that barsteward Black Jack Randall. . .  They'll be escaped and off to France shortly.

I must try and avoid any click bait posts on Microsoft Bing when I sign in.  I did not want to see that a White House adviser is saying that the next 8 weeks could be the most dangerous of our lives and lead to WWIII. . .  That sort of thing haunts me rather when I wake up for a call of nature at 3 a.m.

Well, my day out tomorrow is off as Lulu has an upset tummy and just been sick, with a tint of blood in it so I will have to take her to the vet tomorrow.  

Amalgamation

 I've got the car back from the garage, and I can cope with Porlock Hill again now - but only if I am driving.  Couldn't blardy walk up there - I think it's a 1 in 4 hill.  (That's a 25% grade in American terms).   No worries anyway, as it's in the West Country and haven't been down that way for many a long year.   I have had problems with the handbrake on the car - it just wouldn't hold on a steep hill.  The car was overdue an oil change anyway, so got both things attended to at the same time.  I was surprised when I put the handbrake on and it only came up less than a cm!  Phew.  I had to drive into a very steep driveway on a narrow lane on the way back from Tam's recently and thought I'd end up going through their gate!

Without a car and knowing I was going to have to walk to the garage to collect it later, I sat down after breakfast and started stitching the two single quilts together.  I will need to put a nice binding on it too, later.  I am using a tiny 1" quilting needle and tiny stitches on the tiny 1 1/2" hexies.  I have sewn about 2 1/2 feet of it now.

I have been rewatching Outlander from the start to keep me amused.  I sped up through the bit where Jamie is flogged though.  Looking at her gorgeous wedding dress, I really don't know how it stayed up.  It must have been glued in place!! It's nice to get lost in history, and forget about the current world worries.  Though, to be said, it was so good to see Trump starting to get his comeuppance . . .

I have tried to keep the heating off most of the day.  I had it on for an hour and a half first thing, then half an hour at lunchtime.  Alfie was looking cold though so I made him up the small hotty botty which I put under the quilt on the sofa where he was.  He snuggled up onto that.  Pippi was snuggled beside me and if she'd had her way, would have been inside the quilts as usual.   It's 15.3 deg in the kitchen, not warm - not quite 60 deg. Fahrenheit, so I will put the heating back on shortly.

I filled up with diesel on Monday, but prices haven't gone up yet.  Perhaps the situation with  America v. Iran will now calm down a bit and prices may even drop.  We are ALL paying for that war.  If only this Government would stop trying to destroy farmers and destroy farmland, for we are getting into dangerous territory.

Right, back to Outlander and the quilts.  

Jigsaws and hexagons

 Well, I have had a couple of sales on Ebay, one on Marketplace.  Some bod queried about a chair and then asked was I going to be selling anything else, so I sent him photos of half a dozen items.  Total value of items over £1200.  He offered a thousand pounds less.  Do I LOOK gaga?!  I am meeting up in town later in the week with a lady who is interested in my spinning wheel, so hopefully that will be a sale and a nice chunk of money to my stash.

I had a looong day yesterday, an early start - out of the house by 7, and got back gone 7 in the evening.  I absolutely HATED the drive back over the mountains in the dark, as I don't know the road that well and it is so bendy and hilly, and headlights in your eyes.  I am sure the cars behind me when I got close to Llangurig were delighted when I pulled into a layby to let them pass me as I had been going steady.  Rosie was a joy, and in eating mode once again.  She was full of beans, and missed out a daytime nap but still wasn't ready for bed until 9 pm.  I nearly beat her to it, I was so tired.  Had to de-stress first though.

My friend Pam in Carms gave me a charming 300 piece jigsaw to do - quick to make up but not SO quick as it had small words on it so had to work on those.    It has fired me to want to do another and I got a couple down in the charity shops in town this morning.

I don't know why it turns them sideways when I have taken them right way up.  Gives you an idea anyway.  Bottom one is the done one.

I am planning to rest up later and start sewing together the two patchwork (hexagon) edges of two single quilts I bought at auction, which were rendered uninteresting because they were singles with a valence border of fabric - very antiquated!  They will go to the last Fair of the year as a very generous colourful king size quilt.  This is one of them, below.  Very vintage 60s/70s.

Anyway, still weary as a weary thing today, so am going to make myself a cuppa and go into the living room and festoon myself in hexagons!

Autumn colours on the Canal. Come for an even better walk!

 I asked friend Pam if she wanted to come along today, and she did, so we went to check out the Vintage/Antique/Collectibles Fair, and it was, shall we say, pretty much as I expected.  Not worth the effort for me.  I bought a couple of pieces of very old Cypriot copper, one is a beaten copper bowl, deep red with age. The other a little mug, with character.

Some lovely paintings in the window of the Ardent Gallery (building circa 1579 I believe).  The top one was my favourite.

This used to be my Bank, back in the day.  Never really noticed the Cupola on the top before.

After walking round the town, and a bite to eat and drink at Gregg's, we headed off towards the canal.  We had an absolutely lovely walk - it was really quite warm by the canal (town felt quite cold, as it always seems to feel colder than where you set out from) and we walked for an hour, taking in the colours, and the scenery, and saying hello to the many people, like us, out for a walk.  Fox (Pam's dog) thought it was wonderful too.

Mallards, in tens and nines.  It was roughly two drakes to every duck.

Those sherbert yellows were amazing.  There were a couple of these little pleasure hire boats out on the canal.

Reflections.

What I was trying to capture in these two reflections was the sort of visual refraction of the water, which had broken up into horizontal stripes across the canal.  It was fascinating to see, but I needed a camera better than the one on my phone. The 2nd photo shows it better.

We walked and walked and really didn't want to turn around and come back, but needs must.  It was such a magical walk, the sunshine and the colours, and the countryside - just absolutely lovely and we both really benefitted from being out.  We forgot all our troubles and the worlds' troubles and it just felt good to be alive.

Come for a walk . . .

 

As you can see, I got out for some fresh air today.  The courier for the parcel of carved wood panelling arrived just after 10.  I woke early and was out emptying the car, slowly, and now have everything put away bar the bookcase, which is just a bit too heavy for me to manage on my own.  Will get some help over the weekend.

I took myself to task, and began listing things on Ebay and Marketplace.  I have decided my spinning wheel has to go, and that is on Ebay now.  Hopefully it will sell, as it was completely overhauled and serviced back in June.  I've taken photos of a vintage Maasai beaded fly whisk, which is going on in the morning.  On Marketplace, I have put the "Grandfather" Windsor chair which has been here far too long.  I don't need it, and even at a giveaway price it hasn't sold at the Unit.  I've also listed the Indo-Persian tray (a really pretty one) I have had some years now (we moved with it).

I will do some book listings over the weekend too, and try to pass on Keith's scarcely-opened set of militaria books on German WWII daggers, and other collectable books he had.  I will sell what I can and then get my book-seller friend to come and offer on some of the others I no longer need.

It was a lovely day for a walk (the old railway line).  I was down to a 3/4 sleeve t-shirt after I'd gone half a mile.

Greatly enjoying the latest JD Kirk, Stateside.  It's making me laugh on just about every page, which is a positive.  Nicely distracted over on Instagram by a young couple who have gone to live on Bardsey Island (wardens I assume) - baptism of fire as storms Austen and Boelo arrived within hours of them landing and getting in the farmhouse.

This vibrant leaves are the Guelder Rose and its berries.  SO pretty.

I may give myself a run over to Brecon tomorrow, to check out the Vintage, Antiques and Collectables market and see if it's worth doing to try and get rid of oldest pre-Covid things.  I want to empty the Library as much as possible and get rid of two bookshelves too (one is HUGE, used to be a wardrobe).  I was chatting to a friend in Dorset who has a wonderful social life, always going on interesting coach trips.  None of those round here - I'd have to be in Cardiff or Swansea I think.

I used to know what this little purple flower was - one of the Geranium tribe I think.  I am being too lazy to get one of my botanical books . . .

Right, this won't do.  Time to do a bit more stitching.